Monday, October 11, 2010

Cupcakes

In my Journal of Whispers there are many disconnected things. Cupcakes and glass feature quite often.

Cupcakes should be feminine and pretty and outrageously decorated. They should be light and airy to eat. One day when we have our cupcake shop, we will bake a new batch everyday, in order to meet this requirement. Their presentation is also very important: light, attractive accessories, glass plates, silken cloths, wrought iron baskets....

At the Good Food and Wine show at the Dome, Ariél and I were enticed by the cupcakes accessories (as girls will wont* to be…*old-fashioned word). We couldn’t decide between the huge love hearts (with pen with edible ink – so you could write your own love messages on the hearts) or the wafer hearts. In the end we didn’t buy either. We bought some other whimsical cupcake decorations, which at the moment are at sea! They are travelling in our container with our other belongings, specially selected to make the journey abroad to a new land… In the meantime we have the Barbie sprinkles from Tescos with which to adorn our cupcakes.

Ariél and I make the best cupcakes ever. My favourite are the maraschino cherry ones. WE have had to adapt our South African recipe slightly – the sweetness of beet sugar is slightly sweeter than cane sugar. Cooking times were also different. Last time we made cupcakes here, we took them out of the oven (we have two ovens) at the same time as Tom took out a roast chicken. Our cupcakes were on the cooling rack next to his spluttering chicken. Only later, when we came to taste one of our cupcakes, did we realise that they tasted like: chicken!! Not a good flavour for dainty little cupcakes.